My life has become a romantic comedy. I am so stinkin' happy that all I want to do is dance! And I do. My fella and I dance and dance and dance some more. We slow dance in the frozen foods section of the grocery store, in the middle of Starbucks and on the beach with our toes in the sand as the waves kiss our ankles at sunset. It doesn't matter where we are, or who might be watching. And we don't even need music, in fact I prefer it when there is none, then he sings to me softly so no one else can hear. And I feel safe and loved and happy. His displays of affection, both public and private, have brought me out of the shell I was hiding in after I'd been date raped. He is gentle, kind, patient and loving and I am the luckiest girl in the entire world because he picked me.
So, why in the name of all that is holy and good, why when everything in my life has finally come together so sweetly did I decide ... to snoop?
Ah crap! I don't know why we women do the things we do. Maybe it's because we're all psycho. Yes, at the risk of losing my "Chick Card" for divulging confidential female information, I will go on record as saying that we are all psycho in some way, shape or form. Some of us are just a little more advanced than others. I just so happen to be at the top of my class.
For instance, I have in the past been known to fake the big O. This may come as a big surprise to some of my Mr. Use-To-Be's. Is it because I'm stupid enough to think that men actually care if sex is good for both of us or not? No. It was because I thought I was doing them a favor, pumping up their egos by telling them that they are the king and allowing them to believe that they had rocked me to my core. But they hadn't and the truth is that I was too afraid to ask for what I wanted. I expected my partner to read my mind and when he couldn't, I decided that he didn't care enough to ask and therefore wasn't worthy, so I'd dump him. I walked away from some potentially great men because through no real fault of their own, they couldn't satisfy me, so in my mind it was all their fault. And I couldn't see myself spending even one more second with such a selfish, self-gratifying creep who in actuality would have loved nothing more than to please me, but I didn't tell and he didn't ask, so he was the jerk. See? Psycho!
So, there I was. Alone. In my boyfriend's apartment. And the temptation was just too great! He wasn't out the door more than thirty seconds before I was pulling a Columbo and casing the entire joint for pieces of I don't know what. Look, I love him, I trust him, we communicate, but every woman knows there are certain things we just don't ask about because we don't want to come off as clingy, needy or insecure, which incidentally we usually are. So, instead we snoop. We snoop because we want to see if there are any clues as to what kind of man he really is, what secrets he may have, what kind of women he has dated in the past. Were they prettier? Younger? Smarter? Sexier?
Before I go on, it's important that I note here that snooping is bad. It's wrong, it's a violation of privacy and it's sneaky and creepy and not OK. But I did it anyway. And you know what I found? Nothing. Aside from the standard old photos of the ghosts of relationships past, all of which I knew about, there was nothing whatsoever to indicate that my man, the light of my life, wasn't the most upstanding, adorable, loving, straight-shooting guy ever to walk the face of the universe. And I danced. I sang and did a happy little jig and all was right with the world. When I finished my victory dance, I sat on the couch with my feet on the coffee table taking it all in. Man oh man, I snooped and I came up empty handed. He was clean. He was true. As I sat staring blankly at my ugly feet, I smiled, he loves me and my ugly feet! La-la-la-la ... what the?
If it were a snake it would have bitten me. Staring right back at me from the top of the coffee table where my ugly feet were resting- was his journal. Right in the living room of all places, not in one of the many drawers I'd combed through, not in any box hidden in any closet, but right there on the freakin' coffee table right in front of my freakin' face! Right out in the open—well, under some newspapers and lodged between some other books. I couldn't believe it. He had to know I'd see it. Had to know that I have a va-judy and because of that fact have a propensity towards psychosis and that it couldn't be helped; I'd have to read it. No. It was his journal, filled with his private thoughts and feelings. Reading it would be wrong. But I did it anyway.
There are moments in our lives that we wish were "do-overs" where we could hit a pause button, rewind and do it all over again differently. Reading Jay's journal was a big one.
It was filled with letters that he'd never torn out and sent. They dated all the way back to last summer and most recently up until two weeks ago. They were beautifully written, filled with words that every woman longs to hear, but they weren't addressed to me. They were meant for Mandy, the baby-voiced surfer girl I'd met on the boardwalk a few months ago. As I scanned the letters I couldn't help but stop at words like "deep connection," "kindred spirits" and "sunlight illuminating golden hair that I dream of touching." My heart broke. He hadn't picked me. I'd won by default. He was falling in love with her but I'd been raped. I needed him more than she did so he was putting her on the back burner so he could tend to my needs. I was crying and my hands were shaking.
I never heard the front door open.
Sonja covers the ins and outs of relationships. Or is it the ups and downs?